Raves, Rants & Roses

RESPONSE: In regard to the Aug. 2 article titled: “Most Countywide Campuses Rated ‘Acceptable’ Or Better.” The Arp ISD Superintendent Toney Lowery, was quoted as saying, “the African-American subcategory missed the ‘academically acceptable’ requirement in the math portion by just a few students, causing the entire high school to be rated ‘academically unacceptable.’”

I read this as saying we would have been fine if we didn’t have black kids at our school. He did go on to state that progress had been made, and they would accept the challenge for next year. There are a lot of school districts in East Texas and the state of Texas who have minority students, and this should not be used as a reason for why a school district doesn’t meet academic standards.

Steve Thompson
Tyler